“Please, please don’t!” she said, and looked at him.
Her lips were quivering, there was a glorious flush in her cheeks; and in her eyes, a kind of fear. So he let her go, and opened the door for her and stood listening to the soft swish of her draperies as she sped up the dark stairs.
Then very slowly Johnny Everard came back to his chair. He picked up his pipe and stared at it, yet did not see it. He saw a pair of eyes that seemed to burn into his, eyes that had betrayed to him at last the secret of her heart.
“I didn’t know—I didn’t know,” Johnny Everard said brokenly. “I didn’t know, and oh, my God! I am not worthy of that! I am not worthy of that!”
CHAPTER XXXIX
“THE PAYING”
Once again Mr. Philip Slotman was tainting the fragrant sweetness and freshness of the night with the aroma of a large and expensive J.S. Muria.
Once again the big shabby old car stood waiting in the shadows, a quarter of a mile down the road, while he who hired it leaned against the gate under the shadow of the partly ruined barn.
He had not the smallest doubt but that she would come. It was full early yet; but she would come, though, being a woman, she would in all probability be late.
And she would pay, she dared not refuse him. Yet he needed more than the money, he thought, as he leaned at his ease against the gate and smoked his cigar.